Vibia Sabina
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Vibia Sabina (83–136/137) was a Roman Empress, wife and second cousin, once removed, to Roman Emperor Hadrian. She was the daughter to Salonina Matidia (niece of Roman Emperor Trajan), and suffect consul Lucius Vibius Sabinus. After her father’s death in 84, Sabina, along with her half-sisters, went to live with their grandmother's mother, Marciana, and were raised in the household of Trajan with his wife Pompeia Plotina.
She married Hadrian in 100, at the Roman Empress Pompeia Plotina's request, for Hadrian to succeed her great uncle, in 117. Sabina's mother Matidia (Hadrian's second cousin) was also fond of Hadrian and allowed him to marry her daughter.
Sabina was strong and independent and her beliefs in marriage didn't sit well with the Emperor. Sabina is rumored to have had an affair with Suetonius, a historian (and Hadrian's secretary), in the year 119.[1] Meanwhile her husband was thought to be more sexually interested in his favourite Antinous, and he and Sabina had no children. In 128, she was awarded the title of Augusta. Vibia Sabina died before her husband, some time in 136 or early 137.[2] Hadrian's stone elegy for his wife "depicts the apotheosis, or divine ascent of Sabina in accordance with her posthumous deification on the order of Hadrian."[3]
Namesake
Vibia Aurelia Sabina (170-died before 217), daughter and youngest child of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Roman Empress Faustina the Younger was a great, great niece to Vibia Sabina. Her name was bestowed in honor of Sabina and her father.
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Nerva–Antonine family tree
- (1) = 1st spouse
- (2) = 2nd spouse (not shown)
- (3) = 3rd spouse
- Darker purple indicates Emperor of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty; lighter purple indicates designated imperial heir of said dynasty who never reigned
- dashed lines indicate adoption; dotted lines indicate love affairs/unmarried relationships
- small caps = posthumously deified (Augusti, Augustae, or other)
| Royal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Pompeia Plotina |
Empress of Rome 117–136 |
Succeeded by Annia Galeria Faustina |
Notes
- ↑ url=http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Hadrian/1*.html#11.3 Historia Augusta, 11.3
- ↑ Opper, Thorsten. Hadrian: Empire and Conflict, Harvard University Press, 2008, p. 205. ISBN 0-674-03095-8
- ↑ Annelise Freisenbruch, Caesars’ Wives: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Roman Empire (London and New York: Free Press, 2010), 170.
Further reading
- (French) Minaud, Gérard, Les vies de 12 femmes d’empereur romain - Devoirs, Intrigues & Voluptés , Paris, L’Harmattan, 2012, ch. 7, La vie de Sabine, femme d’Hadrien, p. 169-188.
External links
Media related to Vibia Sabina at Wikimedia Commons